


New Year Cheer

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes and his Mental Health Jokes, Humor, I Don't Even Know, New Years, No Plot/Plotless, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve is annoyed, Tony Being Tony, Tony is a little shit, and small town shinannigans, and so is bruce, but he loves Tony dearly, good bros who like to make bets on awkward things, tony and bruce are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:07:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: “Ten bucks says I can end more conversations than you,” Bruce says.Tony snorts, “you’re on,” he says because there was no way Bruce could make things more awkward than he could. Bruce might be an awkward introvert but Tony has been in the limelight his whole life- he knew how to make a crowd uncomfortable.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for mentions of child abuse, alcoholism, and mental health issues.

“Ten bucks says I can end more conversations than you,” Bruce says.

Tony snorts, “you’re _on_ ,” he says because there was _no way_ Bruce could make things more awkward than he could. Bruce might be an awkward introvert but Tony has been in the limelight his whole life- he knew how to make a crowd uncomfortable.

*

“It’s a small town,” Steve warns. Tony has grown up in a city his whole life so Steve was one hundred percent sure that he had no clue what he was walking into.

“I’ve been in small towns,” Tony says, giving him one of those _looks_ , the one he got when he thought he knew better than every one else in the room.

“No Tony, you don’t understand. This town is so small it could be classified as a village. This is the kind of town that has five churches despite having an incredibly small population and they all bicker about church services and the war on Christmas. This is not a town with a population of one hundred thousand claiming it’s small. Those towns need to stop faking being small,” Bucky says. Nothing pissed them off more than some asshole claiming their small city was a small town because it was _not_ a small town. Until they had a guy that was rumored to have married a horse and everyone had a second cousin that was related to him then it was not a small town.

Tony frowns, “ _what_ are you talking about?” he asks, frowning a little.

“We have a guy named fly eater Joe and his brother is the more famed pig fucker Keith,” Steve says. “ _This_ is the kind of small town we’re referring to.” It was the kind of town they hated because Steve got his queer ass beat regularly and Bucky didn’t come out of the closet until he brought Tony home that one time and that was that. Steve knew that Bucky was aggressively bisexual the whole time but Bucky refused to come to terms with that until it was either come to terms with it or pass up sleeping with Tony. The answer was obvious- as if anyone in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to sleep with Tony so here they were, a year later, in a poly relationship fully prepared to hide that from all parents involved. Which thankfully wasn’t that many because Tony’s parents were as observant as a bunch of throw pillows and both Bucky and Steve’s fathers are dead.

But that left two mothers to fool and that wasn’t going to be very easy. Steve’s mother in particular was pretty observant and they weren’t used to pretending Bucky wasn’t involved. Steve had offered to be the odd guy out but Bruce made them all draw straws so Bucky ended up being the one pretending to not date Tony. He had been alright with it though, even though Steve had asked several times if he was alright with that.

“I think I regret this already,” Tony mumbles. “But did Keith actually fuck a pig though?”

“I heard it was a horse,” Bucky says.

“Christ, by the time that got around town he fucked seven dragons so I doubt it,” Steve mumbles, rolling his eyes.

*

Tony decides he hates it in Bucky and Steve’s small ass town the second he spots the fife hundred crosses on the damn wall. Steve said the town had a lot of churches, not that he lived next to one, had one down on the corner of the street he lived on a few doors down, and the weird amount of crosses on the wall. “You didn’t mention _those_ ,” he hisses at Bucky as they walk in.

“Steve warned you,” Bucky says back.

“Look, I’m cool with religion, but if you can stake a vampire with your crosses they need to fucking go,” he says. Bucky starts laughing, doubling over as Steve’s mother- he could tell because of the obvious resemblance- walks in.

“What’s so funny?” she asks in a conversational tone.

Tony lights up because this was his first opportunity to win his bet with Bruce so _score_. “Those crosses on the wall are so large you could stake Edward Cullen with them,” he says cheerfully. Bucky chokes on his laughter for a moment before he starts laughing again.

“Oh… okay,” she says and she walks out with one of those customer service smiles on her face, probably prepared to ream Steve out for bringing him home.

*

Steve looks so unimpressed, “you had _one_ job Stark, and that was to not piss my mother off and your introduction has already half ruined that. Staking Edward Cullen, really?” he asks.

“That cross is unnaturally large, Steve. I couldn’t help it.” It’s mostly true anyways, bet with Bruce aside he would have had to say it. That’s just who he was alright?

“You can and will help it. We’re having company over and you’re going to be on your best behavior,” Steve tells him, hands on his hips. Tony agrees but only because he wants to at least _try_ to appease one out of two boyfriends. Bucky wouldn’t give a damn, he’s pretty chill and he brought Tony coffee in the morning. Steve actually expected things from him, like being a better person and stuff but Tony was surprisingly into it. Maybe because Steve had one of those personalities that made you want to impress him or punch him or fuck him. Tony wanted to do most of those things all at once pretty much all the time. Bucky was a nice balance between the two because he was far more compromising than either Steve or Tony and it made things work like ten times better.

Oddly enough Tony was certain that monogamy wouldn’t work for them. He and Steve would tear each other apart without Bucky pointing out they were both being assholes, Steve would run poor Bucky over with his personality in a romantic pairing, and Tony would probably do the same. Instead Tony and Steve balanced out Bucky’s unwillingness to say when he was uncomfortable by saying it for him and Bucky was at least willing to tell Tony and Steve that they were dicks. To be fair he was mostly right and when Bucky got angry it was impossible not to listen- it would be like kicking a puppy. So he and Steve sulked for a few hours and came back to mumble about being rude to each other and that they wouldn’t do it again and then Bucky would go back to looking like a normal person instead of a stressed cat. His hair stood up and everything. It was nice to pet Bucky’s hair back down after he and Steve made up.

“Please make like fifty very awkward comments at dinner. It’ll be the only way I’ll get through this alive because I hate people and crowds. Your humor will make it worth it,” Bucky says. Steve gives him a _look_ but as soon he turns around Bucky gives him a thumbs up and a grin.

*

“So what are you doing in school?” some woman Tony has never even seen before asks.

“I’m trying to create a semi autonomous AI system that runs on algorithms that predict the users need before the user. You do anything interesting?” he asks as she frowns, trying to figure out how exactly that would work. His profs made the same face because they thought JARVIS was impossible but the joke was on them- JARVIS was already made and he was waiting for Stark Expo so he could show up his father’s stupid ass hover car that only half worked because hanging out with Sam Wilson was making him petty. His and Bucky’s prank war gave him life, especially because they liked to think Steve didn’t know when he was secretly giving them both advice on how to irritate each other.

“Oh. I made blondies but then I burnt them,” she says, making a face.

“That’s cool, the last time I tried to bake I blew up the kitchen and there was a glass thingy in the ceiling and there was a lot of Steve yelling.” This earns another confused look because- like Rhodey- she was probably confused on how the glass dish ended up on the _outside_ of the oven. Tony struggled with that too because by all means it was impossible. The conversation stops there and he sends off a text to Bruce, telling him he has ended two conversations so far and Bruce sends him several annoyed face emojies.

Bucky slides over next to him not long after the woman leaves him alone looking harassed.   
I hate people and I wish they would all leave. Uncle Bill keeps going on an on about some crap no one cares about,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Doesn’t everyone have at least one family member that does that?” he asks. It was just family normalcy. Duh.

“You don’t. Your mom wished you a merry Christmas then fucked off to the Bahamas and Howard started a drunken rant but Steve told him to fuck off and he proceeded to follow your mother to the Bahamas. Your Christmas is a Christmas I can enjoy. Because no one is there, not because I have any desire to have a dysfunctional family,” he says quickly, probably to not sound like an insensitive ass.

“I knew what you meant. Honestly I prefer it too- it’s better than being asked what I’m doing in school five hundred times. Read a damn news paper,” he mumbles. As if no one knew what he was doing on any given occasion relationship status notwithstanding. At least no one was acting star struck, that’s always nice.

“Or a tabloid. Yesterday you were sleeping with some obscure princess,” Bucky says, grinning.

“Was I? Someone better tell Steve about that.” He’d probably get another lesson in reliable news sources that he didn’t need because tabloids have taught him that people would say anything to make a buck.

“Please don’t tell Steve that. I love him but I can do without his annoyed rants about your fake sex life. You have way more fun in the media than real life,” Bucky says.

“Not true. Obscure princesses don’t dress up as dinosaurs at three A.M and make weird noises for shits and giggles.” Which was true, that was not a think that happened because he’s experienced that. Steve and Bucky were way more fun than princesses.

*

“Tony stop making things awkward, did you really need to bring up that one time you and Bruce almost killed each other with infectious diseases?” Steve asks.

“It was a fun time minus the part where we thought we were going to get the plague or something. I thought it was relevant to the conversation.” It totally was, the person asked what kinds of things he did in the lab, it was totally relevant to bring up a totally awkward conversation ender that led to a lot of confused facial expressions.

“It was not a fun time, I thought you were going to die because you and Bruce look like thirty shots and decided that you two were going to be the new CDC,” Steve says, hands planted on his hips.

“Over first, thirty shots is a total exaggeration. And two, after that was fun. Come on, it was fun,” he says, grinning. Steve and Bucky practically jumped him and that was _spectacular_. He was tempted to almost die with Bruce in the lab again for a repeat result but Bucky told him that he’d replace Tony with a dog minus the coming home festivities if he did that and he didn’t want to be replaced by a pet so.

“It was terrifying and having you home was a relief because I thought you were going to die of the _plague_ and you were live tweeting the whole damn thing. Sometimes I wonder about you,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“Me too, but most of that is thinking I’m awesome. I wonder about you too, how do you live with being so serious all the time? I’d die.” That was totally legit too; jokes were his way of living through having Howard as a father. _Something_ had to be pleasant enough to look forward to and jokes and Rhodey’s face were it for him. And sometimes Pepper depending on how much work they had to do.

“I know you would honey, but please stop telling people about the time you almost committed suicide by lab stupidity and safety violations. It’s almost worse than when Bucky told his mother that he wanted a sense of purpose for Christmas and we had to explain self-depreciative mental health jokes as a coping mechanism to said mental health issues. Seriously, behave and stop acting like you’re dating Bucky it’s getting weird with the family members,” Steve says. He at least looks pained at that last bit, which is fair because Tony didn’t like it either. But none of them wanted to explain their relationship to their family- friends was difficult enough and he still got the side eye from Rhodey.

“Didn’t Bucky go on to say he thought a sense of purpose was on sale at Wal-Mart but at this point he’d take second hand Salvation Army hand-me-downs?” Tony asks

Steve lets out a deep sigh, which means yes, “that wasn’t a fun conversation.”

“More fun than your conversation with your Uncle Bill?” he asks.

Steve rolls his eyes again but more dramatically this time, “Uncle Bill is more fun _barely_ because he’s a pathological liar and I’ve made a game out of pointing out the inconsistencies in his stories just to watch the mental backflips he makes trying to bridge the gaps. Which does not happen when trying to explain mental health jokes.”

“Wow, hanging out with Sam has made you petty too! Glad to see I’m not the only one.”

*

Bruce manages to stop two more conversations in the time Tony stops five mentioning his abuse as a child, his father’s alcoholism, his chronic insomnia, his abundance of other mental health issues, and his being pansexual. All Bruce managed to do was make dinner weird after mentioning his girlfriend. Tony totally knew he was going to win this.

The friends of Steve’s parents that stayed after dinner are all gathered around the television as the ball drops for New Years. He’s been getting increasingly weird looks all night because he was doing a horrible job at pretending not to date Bucky and he was doing a great job at being an atheist. Apparently small towns didn’t appreciate the godless. Or being told that he didn’t really care if he went to hell given that he didn’t think it existed. _Duh_.

He watches in mild curiosity as the countdown begins because this was generally dead boring to him. Who cared if it was a New Year? They got one of those every year, they aren’t new or interesting. But he yells happy New Year with everyone else because he needed to look like a normal human to fool Steve’s mother into not hating him completely- which probably wasn’t going to happen anyways because of his bet with Bruce.

When he goes to sit down, however, he sits on Bucky. “Um,” he says when everyone looks at him, “surprise I’m dating Steve and Bucky?” It comes out like a question but it’s technically a fact and shit. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Anthony Edward Stark you had one job,” Steve says, giving him an unimpressed look.

“I sat on Bucky and panicked, sorry. What else was I supposed to do?” he asks.

“Not that,” Bucky says, “dibs on telling Howard his kid is dating two guys.”

“I’ll fight you for that,” Steve says, completely serious.

“How about _no_. No one is fighting anyone unless someone is punching Howard, then fighting is totally cool. Please stop staring at us, you have forty crosses on your wall Sarah, I counted. You don’t get to look at me weird for dating two people when you have that many crosses on your wall. One or two would have been sufficient.” Seriously, that was just excessive.

“I think they’re pretty,” she says, frowning at the wall, “and just so you know if you break Steve’s heart he’ll make you regret it. He’d probably make you regret breaking Bucky’s heart too honestly.”

“This better not have anything to do with your bet with Bruce,” Steve says, “because I want half the proceeds if that’s the case.”

“It isn’t, I really did sit on Bucky and panic but I definitely won the bet. You wouldn’t want Bruce’s current fridge experiment though, we’re trying to breed molds,” he says excitedly.

“You breed molds for fun and it’s the crosses on the wall that freak you out? Well Stevie, you’ve always had a habit of finding the weird ones,” Sarah says, shaking her head. “Just tell me if you’re going to be in some ridiculous headline so I can prepare alright? People talk.” So Tony knew, according to Bucky’s sister there were already rumors about him flying around town. This was normal, apparently, in areas this small. No wonder Bucky and Steve didn’t seem daunted by the media. That, and Steve was likely to fight the reporters off. Bruce told him he’d give Tony more lab time if he caught it on camera.

*

“You are the best boyfriend ever, your humor saved me from so many awkward encounters because everyone asked weird questions about you and I’d rather do that than talk about me,” Bucky says.

“Lucky you. Mom all but asked if we had threesomes this morning and I’m pretty sure I’ll never recover from that,” Steve says. He sort of gags a little, shuddering before he gains control over himself a little.

“I think my mom is avoiding asking me questions because I keep accidentally making bad mental health jokes and she’s worried that asking about threesomes might send me over the edge. She’s right because my mother does not need to know these things about me.” Bucky wrinkles his nose and that’s fair, there were things Tony’s parents knew about him that he could have done without them knowing ever. “But hey, to the real issues here. Is it true that you were dancing naked in the streets at three A.M?” Bucky asks.

“Oh you heard he was dancing? I heard he was worshiping the devil. Those are vastly different rumors,” Steve says, frowning a little.

“I haven’t even left the house so no I was not dancing naked in the very cold streets or worshiping a devil I don’t believe in. Seriously?” he asks.

“Small towns,” Steve and Bucky say in sync, as if this was perfectly normal behavior. Tony decides that he likes the city better because at least there he actually had to be out and doing something for the rumors to start. Most of the time anyways.


End file.
